Who Are the AWFULs? Trump Hates Them, So They’re Doing Something Right

The nomenclature is powerful. Donald Trump loves nicknames, and there is power in naming things. Once something has a name, it can be categorized, judged, explained, and perhaps satirized and belittled. Over the past decade, Trump has had great success naming his rivals. Most are at the eighth grade level, but they often subsequently flatten these rivals, sucking their power from them – Low Energy Jeb, Little Marco, Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe. This naming phenomenon was not limited to individuals. Groups often gave themselves nicknames: KHIVE (Harris supporters), Pantsuit Nation (Clinton supporters), MAHA (RFK Jr. supporters), and of course MAGA (Trump supporters).

And sometimes these groups were given derogatory nicknames: Karens (humorless women), and now AWFULs (rich, white, urban liberals). The first time I saw someone use the acronym to describe this group was on election night in 2024, when internet commentator Erick Erickson tweeted: “Affluent white urban liberal women. AWFUL has radicalized a lot of people against them. Nichole Wallace, Rachael Maddow and most of the other women on MSNBC have really played a powerful role in what’s happening tonight” (spelling errors are those Erickson’s, not mine).